


born to die

by aeriamamaduck



Series: Tell Me Where Your Love Lies [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Amnesia, Arguing, F/M, Forgiveness, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Love, Love/Hate, Memory Loss, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Verse, Original Character(s), Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prequel, Reunions, Suicide Attempt, Victor Nikiforov and Yuri Plisetsky are Brothers, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:21:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28043073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeriamamaduck/pseuds/aeriamamaduck
Summary: The Lady and her Prince fight a private war.Prequel to"tell me where your love lies"
Relationships: Female Original Character/Male Original Character
Series: Tell Me Where Your Love Lies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796530
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	1. feet don't fail me now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **CW: Reference to past suicide attempt**

_Aleksandra should have let her die._

_A thousand dreaded images flickered through Nadezhda's mind as she did everything she could to give up, to fall away from the moorings shackling her to the horror in the light of day. She had cut long and deep, she'd bled until the world went dark and..._

_...Victor disappeared._

_He was reaching for her, his face full of fear, and Nadezhda wouldn't reach back._

_"Where are you?"_

_"Boys, where are you? Vitya? Yura?!"_

"My Lady."

Nadezhda jolted awake, a painful cold seizing her limbs. 

It was dark. Everything was dark, but not because she was dying. She knew full well where she was.

A year. A full year, and she was no closer to seeing her boys again. 

"A bad dream, my Lady," she heard Aleksandra soothe softly, her hand gently stroking what was left of Nadezhda's hair. They'd sheared it off for the sake of her safety, assuming anyone recognized a would-be Nikiforov widow. 

It was clear that...Antonov wanted them all dead. Every last one of them. 

The wives. The children, down to the smallest infant.

"No, not a dream," Nadezhda replied, her voice unrecognizable to her ears. She'd been ill for weeks, her chest aching with a near-constant, wracking cough. "I was remembering..." She sat up with a groan, feeling older than her years and weak of spirit. No, she didn't feel it. Her spirit was weak, demoralized after a year of fruitless wandering that only took her further away from her sons or anyone who could help her.

It was hard to tell the days apart now. Obviously it was winter, but she wondered if it was closer to Victor's birthday, or Yuri's. Had she missed both altogether? Victor was probably eleven now. He must have presented already if he was anything like her and Leo...

_Oh, Leo..._

She couldn't think of her mate, her husband. The part of her spirit that had withered away, along with every mark he'd once left on her body. And his scent. It was completely gone. Wildflowers couldn't come close to it, no matter how hard she wished. She coughed into her arm again, and the way her chest seized filled her with misery. But she couldn't lie back down again. She could at least stoke the fire while Aleks prepared tea.

Her stomach ached with hunger. She'd never been so hungry in her life, not when her father's table was always full. He'd always made sure she was warm, and would sit with her when she was sick, reading in that rumbling voice of his that made the monsters in the stories seem delightfully real.

_Are you alive?_ she wondered.

"Do you know what day it is, Aleks?" she asked quietly, knowing the answer was likely "no." Syperian winters were just that. Winter. Especially this far north, with the scarcity of sunlight. 

"Not the day but...It's January, my Lady," Aleks replied, looking at her with a kind and sad smile.

Nadezhda was grateful for it, but her heart was breaking. _Happy birthday, Vitya._

She missed him. She missed Yuri. Her spirit was ripped to pieces, and she only had herself to blame. The scar on her arm was a permanent reminder of that. Of the look on Victor's face as she stupidly said her goodbyes, oblivious to what would happen to him and his brother.

And Yura was so small still. Victor was still a child. How could they go on on their own?

_They can't. They can't, they're children. My children._

She sighed as her eyes began to ache. Her tears had dried long ago, though her heartbreak could still be felt acutely. Yet another part of her that was completely lost, just like the beautiful man she'd loved for years, the shy prince who had whisked her away from Vasili Konstantinovich's grasp and claimed her as his own. 

She coughed again, bowing away from the fire as her chest seized again with every spasm. She was dying, possibly. But she couldn't die now.

Not without finding her children again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment!!


	2. take me to the finish line

_Don't forget. Never_ again, Leonid thought to himself as he stared at his reflection in the flat pool of water, devoid of ripples for the moment. He stared, focused, and imagined another face, just like his. Younger, rounder. And longer hair, the same silver as his. _Remember. Your name is Leonid Iosifevich Nikiforov. You have a wife and two sons. Nadezhda. Victor. Yuri._

_Nadezhda. Victor. Yuri._

The rest of it, all other important information, was as impossible to grasp as fog. There were places. Other faces that kept escaping him, no matter how hard he tried.

Hopefully one day they would reappear, but he knew the important things. The most important faces, and he wanted more than anything than to figure out how he was supposed to find them. 

_Your parents are dead. Your brothers too. Ekaterina's been dead for years..._

There. That was her face. Silver-haired like him and blue-eyed. Her face resembled their mother's, but it was always rounder and much kinder, more prone to smiles. She wasn't murdered, but her death had still been painful. Their brothers were their opposites. Hard and vicious. 

_Father_.

A face, older and harder still. Eyes like ice, burning holes into whatever they gazed at. Leonid couldn't picture him...dead.

His face transformed into another. Cruel and hatchet-like. Eyes like steel and hands rough and cruel as they grabbed him, tight as iron, tearing and breaking...

_No...!_

Leonid's head almost exploded with pain and he was on his knees, gripping his head in his hands.

Otabek saved the stew from burning and then went to Leonid, helping him get up.

The young alpha was in his mid-teens, and had his own brand of strong grace when he moved, quick and efficient, while Leonid felt seconds away from falling to pieces. _Nadya. Nadya..._ He fought to remember her scent. The way she bloomed when she was in his arms. Leonid breathed, struggling to recall that scent with clarity, distracted by the nearness of alpha scent. An old instinct urged him to hiss a threat, but he silenced that. Otabek was a child. Only two or three years older than Yuri would be now. He was alone and harmless. He'd saved Leonid's life. Sheltered him and taught him to cook well enough that there was no threat of Leonid accidentally poisoning them with some rancid concoction.

Except now Leonid had almost burned the stew, which was unforgivable at this point. Otabek needed to eat, after all, and Leonid could never bear to watch him swallow down the sad excuses for meals Leonid once gave him. The headache reduced to a dull pounding at his temples, and Leonid looked up to see Otabek staring at him with concern.

"...Did you remember anything else?" Otabek asked, his voice low and almost too deep for one so young. Leonid had been there when it first began to crack, and he couldn't help but think of Victor, older than Otabek and so close to manhood. Even at this point, Leonid still prayed that his sons would present as alphas, improbable as it seemed. 

Shame churned inside him. He didn't know where his sons were. He'd _forgotten_ them, and lingered uselessly in a shack while the nation burned. He'd begun to see Otabek as a son even when Victor and Yuri resided in some closed-off part of his mind, locked away by pain and fury. 

They were moving aimlessly, with not one clue as to where they were going. They were in Western Syperia, sheltering in an abandoned hunting lodge, away from civilization. All Leonid had to go on were descriptions, and Otabek insisted on being the one to ask about a woman and two boys, if they were together or separated. If anyone had even _seen_ them in the past...Five years. That was how much time had passed since Leonid left the _dacha_ and found...

_Vasili Konstantinovich_

The name made him want to retch.

He swallowed and answered with a weak smile at the boy, "Just the same things, Beka." He wouldn't describe the worst of it to the boy, even as the sensations and faces trickled into his mind like a thin stream of water. "It doesn't hurt much now."

He was lying. It did hurt and he had no desire to eat. But he did spread his scent to ease the boy's fear, and got on his feet gingerly to retrieve the bowls and spoons Otabek had washed thoroughly. He forced himself to smile before turning back to the young alpha and said as brightly as he could, "We'll eat, and then we'll sleep and move on in the morning! We have a long way to go!"

His heart ached when Otabek slowly returned his smile with a subdued one of his own.


End file.
